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Business News/ Companies / Indian firms look for ways to improve women’s participation
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Indian firms look for ways to improve women’s participation

Firms implement a mix of hiring, retention strategies to improve proportion of women at mid-management level

At the entry level, women account for 29% of the total workforce, but this drops to just 9% at the mid to senior management level—which is among the lowest when compared to other Asian countries, according to a McKinsey 2012 report. Photo: MintPremium
At the entry level, women account for 29% of the total workforce, but this drops to just 9% at the mid to senior management level—which is among the lowest when compared to other Asian countries, according to a McKinsey 2012 report. Photo: Mint

Mumbai: Thirty three-year old Vibha Vasisht was a consistent high performer during the eight years she was at Axis Bank Ltd. Vasisht started as a relationship manager straight out of her college campus and moved into the role of senior manager, operations, at the Chandigarh branch of the bank. She quit to take care of her newborn child.

Two years later, when she was ready to return to work, she found it tough to find another job. “I was frustrated. I did not even get a call back from companies," says Vasisht.

She was then approached by her former employer, which had begun a process to rehire women who had quit for family reasons. Last week, Vasisht was reappointed as a senior manager of operations, the same position she held when she left Axis Bank.

Axis Bank, along with other companies like ICICI Bank Ltd, Godrej Industries Ltd, RPG Group, Aditya Birla Group and Lupin Ltd are implementing a mix of hiring and retention strategies to improve the proportion of women at the mid-management level.

At the entry level, women account for 29% of the total workforce, but this drops to just 9% at the mid to senior management level—which is among the lowest when compared to other Asian countries, according to a McKinsey 2012 report titled Women Matter: An Asian Perspective. The number falls further to less than 1% at the CEO level, according to the report.

“Fifty percent of women who enter the workforce drop out by the time they reach mid-management due to pregnancy and other commitments like taking care of ailing family members," says Saundarya Rajesh, founder-president, FLEXI Careers India, an organization that describes itself as one that helps firms improve women workforce participation. The missing women in mid-management is as much a problem for industries such as information technology, hospitality, banks and financial services that have 18-33% women in the workforce, as it is for the manufacturing, pharmaceutical and FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) sectors that have only 8-13% women, adds Rajesh.

To plug this gap and improve the number of mid-managerial women to at least 20% of the workforce over a five-year period, the six companies mentioned earlier are using a variety of hiring and retention strategies. Such strategies range from re-hiring women who have quit, to offering six-months fully paid maternity leave, part-time work options, up to two-years unpaid leave, child care leave and even leave for fertility treatment and adoption.

Some of these strategies have helped women employees stay on.

When Nupur Gurbaxani, working at Godrej Industries, found out that she was pregnant, she was concerned. “I have not seen too many of my friends go through this journey successfully, career-wise," says Gurbaxani. But Godrej’s policy allowing for six months’ maternity leave convinced her to stay on. The decision paid off, and in a year-and-a-half, she was promoted to the position of an associate vice-president from general manager, suggesting that her decision to stay was wise.

“It is not that I don’t have challenges of managing work and a small child, but the company’s policy makes it easy on me," said Gurbaxani, referring to the flexi-time work options offered by Godrej, under which employees have to work 42 hours in a 5-day week. What time they choose to come in to work is up to them.

“When we analysed the reasons for women quitting, we realised we could have stopped them from leaving at least 40% of the time by ensuring proper implementation of policy," says Farah Nathani-Menzies, vice-president, diversity and inclusion and strategic projects, for Godrej.

Often women quit because they lack the motivation to re-join the workforce after maternity and are suppressed by a personal glass ceiling. That is when they need a company’s intervention, believes Pushpall Kapadia, head, diversity centre of excellence, at RPG Group.

RPG set up an onsite crèche, offered work-from-home options and introduced a flexi-hours scheme under which employees could choose from work hours spread across three time slots, based on whichever is most convenient to them.

However, in a few organizations, even though such policies exist on paper, implementation depends on the manager. For instance, Aparna Vaidhyanarayanan, who used to work for a prominent technology service company, quit as she was not given an extension beyond the government-mandated three months of maternity leave. “If left to the manager, the implementation is not consistent," she says.

Organizations say they recognize this as a problem area and are working to address it.

“To build a favourable ecosystem where women can continue in the workforce, managers need to be sensitized. While there are no real artificial barriers for women, it requires adjusting from everyone in the organization," points out Santrupt Misra, director, group human resources, at Aditya Birla Group, where almost 400 out of the 4,164 women employees went on maternity leave last year.

For an organization, so many women being absent at one time does impact business but it has to be accepted by the organization as a natural effect, says Misra.

In fact, organizations are making sure that they don’t use maternity as a reason to hold back on promotions.

35-year old Akanksha Jain, in her three years at ICICI Bank, availed of a six-month fully paid maternity leave twice. Being a high performer, even though she worked two of the three years she spent there, she was promoted to senior manager last year.

“We are not doing them a favour through these retention policies," says T.K. Srirang, human resources head for ICICI bank. “Having a better balance of women in the organization means a more diverse team with different perspectives and a greater ability to contribute to new ideas."

Despite such policies, the impact is slow to show.

“There has not been a dramatic change with respect to the number of women in mid-management in the last five years. But with the implementation of policies the companies have been taking over the last few years, we can expect higher percentages, to the tune of 20-25% women in mid-management, turn into reality," says Rajesh of FLEXI Careers.

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Published: 15 Oct 2014, 12:41 AM IST
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